Health Insurers Seek to Bend Curve on Covid Testing Prices (1)

Health insurers across the country are seeing bills for coronavirus tests as high as $1,000 as the U.S. looks to increase dramatically the number of tests performed.

Insurers say they’re only just now gathering claims data for Covid tests and say the $1,000 tests, almost 2,000% of what Medicare pays for the same diagnostic, aren’t the norm but showcase the range they’re seeing different providers charge for the same test. Some of the country’s biggest laboratories for Covid testing, such as LabCorp and the University of Washington, have a “cash price"—what a person could pay directly for the test—anywhere between ...